Page 645 - bleak-house

‘and thank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night!
Young lady, if my master don’t fall out with me, I’ll look
down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like,
and again in the morning!’ She hurried off, and presenfty
we passed her hushing and singing to her child at her own
door and looking anxiously along the road for her drunken
husband.
I was afraid of staying then to speak to either woman, lest
I should bring her into trouble. But I said to Charley that we
must not leave the boy to die. Charley, who knew what to do
much better than I did, and whose quickness equalled her
presence of mind, glided on before me, and presently we
came up with Jo, just short of the brick-kiln.
I think he must have begun his journey with some small
bundle under his arm and must have had it stolen or lost
it. For he still carried his wretched fragment of fur cap like
a bundle, though he went bareheaded through the rain,
which now fell fast. He stopped when we called to him and
again showed a dread of me when I came up, standing with
his lustrous eyes fixed upon me, and even arrested in his
shivering fit.
I asked him to come with us, and we would take care that
he had some shelter for the night.
‘I don’t want no shelter,’ he said; ‘I can lay amongst the
warm bricks.’
‘But don’t you know that people die there?’ replied Char-
ley.
‘They dies everywheres,’ said the boy. ‘They dies in their
lodgings—she knows where; I showed her—and they dies

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